Judge grants Richard Conte release before trial

CONWAY, ARK (AP) - A judge has granted the release of a suspect in a 2002 double slaying in central Arkansas until his January trial.

Prosecutor Cody Hiland said Friday that 62-year-old Richard Conte, a former Carson City emergency room doctor, will be allowed to live with his mother in Wisconsin until his Jan. 8 trial. He will remain under house arrest and will have to wear an electronic monitor.

Conte faces two counts of capital murder in the 2002 deaths of 49-year-old Carter Elliott and 25-year-old Timothy Wayne Robertson in Conway.

He was charged in 2011, two days before he was to be released from a Nevada prison where he served nine years for kidnapping his ex-wife, Lark Gathright-Elliott, who was the former wife of Carter Elliott.

Conte's attorney, Jack Lassiter, argued he should be released because the speedy trial law requires a defendant to be freed if he's not tried within nine months of being charged.